


Prestige

by Metronomeblue



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Because of Reasons, Established Relationship, F/F, F/M, Hannibal is Not a Cannibal, I'm sorry I love writing stories like this, M/M, Or not, Prestige references everywhere, Reconciliation, Reunion, Serial Killers, Teeth, Will is dead, gratuitous angst, that movie scarred me as a child
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-01
Updated: 2016-10-01
Packaged: 2018-08-18 19:22:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8173024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Metronomeblue/pseuds/Metronomeblue
Summary: AU- Will is murdered by a serial killer. Hannibal, his husband, can't let go.' Every great magic trick consists of three parts or acts.'He dreamed of Will, most nights. Sometimes they were good dreams, like lying in bed as the sun rose, twisting a dark lock of hair around his fingers. Sometimes he woke feeling as if Will was just inches away. There were nights he could feel him dying, could feel Will’s body, paper-thin shell of bone and flesh shuddering in his arms and breathing blood, could feel the tears slip down his cheeks with abandon.





	

**Author's Note:**

> soooooo this is what I like to call the Very Gay Policeman AU, which did in fact come from a very gay and very AU dream I had about Will and Hannibal. This is part one of three, and I'm sorry but I have no idea when I'll post the next two. Ah, college. Thou art a fickle bitch.

_The first part is called "The Pledge". The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course... it probably isn't._

* * *

 

The funeral was held on a windy day. Hannibal woke early, before the sun crested the horizon, and lay in bed for a moment. He forgot, sometimes, the feeling of another person beside him, the sheet-on-skin-on-skin sensation of having someone you love with you in the time before morning. Other times it was all too close to the surface, a memory that seemed more real than what was around him. He reached out, his fingertips clutching the sheets, searching unconsciously for something no longer there. The silence overwhelmed him.

He dreamed of Will, most nights. Sometimes they were good dreams, like lying in bed as the sun rose, twisting a dark lock of hair around his fingers, or preparing a beautiful meal while Will sat on the other side of the island and watched, eyes so dark and so blue Hannibal felt stripped bare to his soul. They were so real, so true, that sometimes he woke feeling as if Will was just inches away. Other dreams were… Hard. There were nights he could feel him dying, could feel Will’s body, paper-thin shell of bone and flesh shuddering in his arms and breathing blood, could feel the tears slip down his cheeks with abandon, without any regard for anyone or anything else. There were nights Will paced in circles around him, repeating over and over the same things, telling Hannibal things he had never heard Will say.

There were nights he didn’t dream at all. Nights where he lived his life the same as every day, alone and mechanical and regulated. Routine after routine blurring until all he knew was grey and white and emptiness. And then, like a haze of steam and saltwater and life, he’d see Will again, would rush to him with blazing eyes and the widest smile he’d ever worn. And Will wouldn’t even know him.

When he woke it felt like dreaming, too, like the whole world was created for him to feel like this- empty and false and alone. Like Will had been given to him for just long enough to love before he was ripped away in punishment. Like this was his own personal hell and he’d never leave. Like he was forgetting, piece by piece, everything Will was.

Hannibal had tried a therapy group. Just once, just long enough to realize it wasn’t going to work. Jack told him to share his grief, to lighten the load. “It worked for me,” he had said quietly, resting one hand on Hannibal’s shoulder. “It made me feel like I wasn’t alone.” Then he had given him an address (a community center) and a date and time. Hannibal went because he wanted Jack to stop asking, but he stayed out of curiosity.

Hannibal was a psychologist, a good one, he knew why people went to group therapy. He saw the relief, the palpable trust in the faces of everyone in the circle. For a moment he thought perhaps he could feel that, that he could allow himself to share his feelings with the others. He could open up, open his mouth and allow the words to spill out like a flood, a hurricane. He could let go of this force of nature tearing him apart from the inside. But the minute he considered it he knew he couldn’t. He didn’t want to share his grief. He didn’t want to tell these strangers about Will, didn’t want to share all the things only he and Will had known, all the things he felt for Will. He didn’t want to share Will with them, wanted to close up what was left of his husband inside himself and lock it there forever.

He wanted to keep him safe. He stood, upsetting the woman speaking, and muttered his excuses as he left. It was rude, but he could barely bring himself to care. He was upset, in the truest sense of the word- turned over, torn inside-out and raw in the wake of Will’s disappearance. Any manners, any sophistication or politeness he once had was gone. He was little more than a shell, a frame that once held window glass. Without Will, he was as empty and purposeless as a ribcage without a heart, and that was something he didn’t need to tell anyone else to know it was true.

He was alone in his grief, alone in his home, alone in his work. There were times he felt everyone drawing away from him, as though grief might be catching. Except for the dogs, of course. They were a small blessing in this mess, ever-faithful and unrepentantly clear about how greatly they missed their master. Hannibal stood, leaving an uncomfortably empty bed for an uncomfortably empty house. Winston followed. Winston always followed. Walking down the stairs, he felt mixed fondness and despair. Hannibal surveyed the kitchen, taking in the pristine room with only derision for a space empty of Will’s presence. He had been so adamant about keeping it clean when Will was alive, and now that he was gone all Hannibal wanted was to see him making a mess of it. It was almost pathetic.

It had been Winston who found Will- or what was left of him. A shirt soaked in blood, torn-out hair, and a mangled piece of flesh and bone forensics eventually determined was Will’s body. Faithful to the end, Winston had followed Will’s scent through the woods and sat by his body until Hannibal found them. 

Hannibal didn’t know whether to forgive him for that. He didn’t think he ever would. He fed the dogs, like clockwork every day, as Will would have wanted. He had loved those dogs, had shown up shamefaced at their door every other year with some new stray to take in and take care of. Hannibal could hardly refuse him that, especially when Will was, for the most part, tolerant of Hannibal’s own hobbies. Eating organs, even expertly prepared organs, did not come easily to Will, and Hannibal owed it to his husband to react with the same acceptance to Will’s rather harmless and somewhat endearing flock of dogs. It wasn’t too difficult, doing things like that for Will, especially when the dogs were so clearly loyal to him. He had felt he could entrust Will’s safety to them if he was ever unable to protect him, and even now Hannibal was certain he would have been right, had Will been home the night he was taken. 

What-ifs and almosts did nothing for the dead or the living, Hannibal reminded himself, going upstairs to get dressed. And on today, of all days, he owed Will his full presence of mind. 

“You loved this tie,” he murmured to Will’s ghost. It was a beautiful tie, pearlescent cream silk tied into a windsor knot at the base of his throat. It burned, like it was white-hot metal around his neck. He shrugged on his suit jacket, pitch black shrouding him in grief. It was final, now. This was happening. He would drive to the cemetery, listen to a priest say some meaningless words, watch them lower a coffin into a hole, and be forced to part with hope forever. Will would be  _ gone _ forever. Hannibal’s fingers stilled where they were straightening his collar, and he met his own eyes in the mirror.

“Hannibal?” A woman called him from downstairs. The dogs hadn’t barked, so Hannibal felt very little alarm as he descended the stairs. A brief rush of affection flooded him when he found his visitor was Beverly. Alana stepped from behind her, looking over her shoulder at Hannibal, and then behind him to the only photograph which hung on the walls. It was a picture of himself and Will, taken during their wedding reception. Neither of them had felt the need for a wedding photographer, so Beverly had taken it upon herself to take as many pictures as she possibly could, irritating them both to the extreme. Her wedding present, a set of antique silverware with their last initials she had found at a garage sale, had been accompanied by the photograph, which Hannibal had promptly hung in the stairwell. She had taken the picture halfway through the reception, when both of them were slightly inebriated and itching to be away from everyone else. Alana had just told a truly terrible joke about dogs when Beverly took their picture. Will was laughing, seeming completely at ease for the first time in ages, and Hannibal was gazing at him in apparent rapture, a small, almost bewildered smile on his face. He looked like he was pleasantly confused about his own good luck.

“It’s time,” Beverly said, empathy and sorrow writ in her face. Hannibal nodded, and she grabbed Alana’s arm to lead her back to the car. He turned back, touched two fingers to Will’s laughing face. 

“I won’t leave you,” he said quietly. Then, with determination burning in his every step, he forced himself out of the house and locked the door behind him. Beverly waited to get into the car until after he strapped his seatbelt in. She closed the door and waited a moment in silence beside Hannibal. She grimaced, like she wanted to say something to him, but thought better of it and started the car. Alana, quiet and pale in the backseat, looked sicker by the minute. The closer they got to the cemetery the more Hannibal wanted to leave. He felt an emptiness growing in his stomach. He knew, logically, that Will had been taken by somebody who enjoyed killing, that the body and blood Winston found in the forest had matched Will’s DNA, that people didn’t return from the dead. He also knew that if there was a single, infinitesimal fraction of a chance Will was alive, he’d take it without hesitation. Burying this half-empty coffin, filled with bones and decaying cells, was meant to be a step toward resolution, toward healing, but to Hannibal it only felt like the forcing of a knife, the deepening of a wound. A reminder of his failure and his loss. 

Beverly stopped the car at the gate of the cemetery. Nobody moved. Her hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles were white. Alana was slumped against the door. Hannibal sat ramrod-straight, eyes fixed ahead of him and hands folded uselessly in his lap.

“We should get out,” Beverly said, making no move to do so.

“Yes,” Hannibal agreed, still as stone.

“He’d want us to be there,” She said. Hannibal said nothing, musing, inwardly, that Will would probably rather he wasn’t dead at all, but he knew what Beverly really meant. He’d want Hannibal to be there. He undid his seatbelt, opening his door precisely. Beverly followed suit, walking around to open Alana’s door for her. “C’mon,” she said, pulling Alana up by the hands. Hannibal didn’t miss the mix of firmness and tenderness in her touch, and he could almost hear Will dryly suggesting they give them a moment. He gave a flicker of a smile before remembering that Will wasn’t there to say it and why. 

“Hannibal.” He turned at Daniel’s rather unpleasant voice, something like irritated at the surprise in his words. The Detective Colonel had long harbored a predatory and possessive feeling of affection for Will, and when Hannibal entered his life began to act increasingly jealous of the psychologist. Hannibal would have felt something like threatened if Will had even noticed. Instead, the professor had seemed almost lonelier when near Jetting than when away. Needless to say, Hannibal’s friendship, then companionship, then love had taken Will increasingly from Jetting’s draining influence, to the man’s great displeasure.

“Jetting,” he replied tartly. 

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” Daniel said, and Hannibal had to repress the urge to reach out and press his hands around the man’s throat. Had to repress the urge to squeeze and squeeze and squeeze until his spine cracked and his trachea collapsed and he died slowly and painfully. 

“And do tell, Colonel,” Hannibal asked coldly, “Why I shouldn’t be at my own husband’s funeral?” Daniel seemed taken aback at this, as though he had expected Hannibal to smile and laugh, to nod and agree, to  _ go away _ . His expression hardened, and Hannibal found he preferred his anger to his false sympathy.

“Careful, Doctor,” he reprimanded him. “You’re cutting very close to my nerves.” He could tell that all Jetting wanted at this very moment was for Hannibal to fight him on this, to be able to use this small spat as an excuse to force him away and leave the funeral to Will’s  _ real _ friends and family, to the people he felt deserved to be there. Hannibal wouldn’t let that happen.

“My apologies,” Hannibal said, meeting him word-for-word. “I’ve only just lost someone very dear to me.” Jetting could hardly argue with that. 

“Jetting.” Hannibal didn’t think he’d ever been so glad to hear Jack Crawford’s booming voice. “Go pester someone else.” The Colonel snorted, and sent Hannibal an unimpressed look before strutting over to Beverly, who glared furiously at him. Jetting swallowed nervously and made his way to the priest. Jack turned back to hannibal with a softer look. “How are you?” He asked, seemingly genuinely.

“How do you think I am?” Hannibal replied, honestly. There wasn’t a part of him that didn’t feel fragile and raw, bruised and battered by the emotional stress of what had been and what was going to be. “Will is dead.” He met Jack’s eyes with no pretense, allowing his fatigue to show. 

“Yes,” Jack agreed, reaching out to place one hand on Hannibal’s shoulder. “But you aren’t.” Having said this, Jack seemed to hesitate, then pulled back and began to follow Jetting to Will’s graveside.

“I wouldn’t be too sure,” Hannibal murmured, following.

Looking down at Will’s coffin, he felt an overwhelming loneliness. It was illogical, he knew, to only now realize how profoundly Will had altered his life since he entered it, but Hannibal found himself understanding suddenly how little he had before Will, and now, how little he would have after him. It was Will who had widened his life beyond himself, who had brought life and a resounding challenge to Hannibal’s otherwise tedious practice. It was Will who had brought him Alana’s friendship, and Beverly’s and Jack’s. It was Will who had taught him the small joys of owning dogs, which Hannibal had never before believed equalled the small difficulties. It was Will who had shown him how to fish properly, who had reminded him how it felt to relax with the water and lull your prey into false security. It was Will who had taught Hannibal to love, properly and thoroughly, to feel so deeply for another person that there was nothing you wouldn’t do for them. It was all Will, every aspect of Hannibal’s life somehow altered and, if not improved, then intensified by his presence and his unwavering trust in Hannibal.

Trust which he had betrayed. He had sworn, after all, hadn’t he? Sickness and health, richer and poorer, til death. And now Will was dead. 

“Hannibal?” Beverly’s soft voice broke him from his reverie, and he stood, only those who knew him best seeing the slight tremor which betrayed his instability. He stepped gracefully from the row of folding chairs, to stand beside the coffin and speak about what the corpse within used to be like. He looked over the crowd, faithfully gathered to bid Will Graham goodbye. The last four rows were all full, filled to bursting with Will’s students, many either crying or looking very pale and stricken. The three in front of them were co-workers of some sort or another, some psychologists, some forensics workers and policemen. The front two rows were friends and family, and Hannibal felt, for the second time that day, a great affection for Beverly and Alana, who had undoubtedly organized the invitations when Hannibal was unable. He saw Jack, Beverly and Alana, Abigail, crying, Bedelia. His own empty chair.

“Will Graham,” Hannibal began, still looking at the masses of people waiting in folding chairs to hear what he thought of his husband. His voice failed him for a brief moment. “Will Graham was extraordinary in many ways.” He felt the wind begin again, could feel it throwing his voice. “He was a deeply empathetic man, a talented profiler, and a genuinely kind person. He was the best person I have ever,” he stopped. “Will ever meet. He is unparalleled among the ranks of the FBI, the police, the academia who so often scorned him and his methods.” Beverly was crying, though she tried not to show it. Alana was openly weeping. Jack’s eyes were wide, unfocused, and Hannibal did not doubt he was holding back a few tears of his own. The college students were collectively crying, staining each other’s sleeves and shoulders with tears. The wind shook the flowers, blew the hair of the observers, shook Hannibal’s soul from his rib cage. “I…” he couldn’t finish, his mouth empty of words, his whole body tremendously, deeply empty. He couldn’t feel his fingers, and he wondered, distantly, if this was what shock victims felt like. “I loved Will Graham,” he said, suddenly. There was nothing else he could say. “I love Will Graham.” He said, throat closing. “I don’t believe there will ever be a day I don’t.” And, having said his piece, he walked gracefully, numbly, back to his seat, not a calm movement betraying the fury and agony building in his chest, the emptiness raging within him.

It was all he could do to keep breathing.

Hannibal missed the rest of the funeral. Jack and Alana each gave a speech, and he didn’t doubt they were both lovely, moving testaments to their friendships and feelings for Will. He was still so ragged, burning with the loss of the only person he had loved so deeply and unreservedly. Aching for some quiet, some peace in which to recover from this sudden, unprecedented tragedy which everyone around him seemed either to be lost or glorying in.

He rose with the others, stood numb and unmoving as the priest spoke some blessing over Will’s coffin, listened to the wind blow the priest’s words away. He tried not to watch as they lowered Will into the ground, tried not to think of how this was the  _ end _ . After this, there would be no more Will. His body would decay, would become thick black earth, his blood would drain into the soil and water the seeds Beverley had placed in and around his coffin, his coffin itself would break down, would rot into splinters and sawdust. All things that had once been Will or had once belonged to Will would disappear into the ground, would waste away in the darkness. Hannibal would be left with nothing but memory, and even that would fade.

He stayed, even as others left, departed to their appointments and their homes and jobs and lives outside of Will, stood stoic and empty beside Will’s slowly-filling grave. He watched as the coffin was covered by earth, then the hole was filled, then the ground smoothed and sprinkled with water. Hannibal stayed, because unlike the others, he had no life outside of Will. Will had slowly, quietly, almost gently insinuated himself into every facet of Hannibal’s life- they worked together, lived together, slept together, ate together. Hannibal had become accustomed to having Will beside him in all things. By the end, he would have been unsurprised to hear that his and Will’s lungs inhaled and exhaled in unison. Alana had called them codependent, but Will had only shrugged and told her that in a relationship between two somewhat unstable psychoanalysts, codependent was the  _ best  _ possible outcome. 

He felt a hand entwine with his, and his heart almost stopped because for half of a moment he could have sworn it was Will. But the size was wrong, the temperature cooler, the calluses on the wrong side of the fingers. Beverly sighed, leaned her head against his shoulder, and said nothing. They stood, together, watching Will disappear, the wind pushing through hair and suit jackets and black dresses to freeze them both. 

“I think Will is still alive,” she said, and it was shocking because it was not. Hannibal had seen something in her eyes before, a dishonesty and a disbelief that made sense now. He said nothing, and she continued unperturbed. “The blood on the shirt didn’t match Will’s DNA on file, but the body and the hair did.” Hannibal wanted to tell her to stop, to ask her why she hadn’t said anything before, but he was rendered immobile by her next words. “I think somebody switched Will’s DNA sample on file so that they could fake his death.” She pulled away just enough to look up at him. “Hannibal, I think somebody on the team helped take Will.” When he opened his mouth to respond, she clasped her free hand over his mouth. “Nobody else can hear this, do you understand? We don’t know who we can trust.” Hannibal nodded, and she took her hand off his mouth.

“Can I trust  _ you _ ?” He asked her, looming over her with his full height. She took a step back, and the flicker of fear in her eye made him want to smile. There wasn’t a damn thing he wouldn’t do to get Will back, and they both knew it. If there was even a glimmer of hope, he’d take it and run with it until he found Will- dead or alive.

“Always,” she said, quietly but firmly.  He didn’t look away from her eyes, wide and harsh and unflinching against the wind. She let go of his hand, and he looked back at Will’s grave.

Someone else’s grave. With Will’s name on it. A sudden stab of fury pierced right through him. Somebody had taken his husband and left this- this imposter. A poor replacement for Will, lacking any of his virtues, even in death. And Hannibal had believed them. Did he really have so little faith in Will? Did he really believe Will would die so easily, without so much as a fight? 

With that thought, elation rippled through him. Will was alive. Will was  _ alive _ . He felt so light, as if all the emptiness, all the things that had been carved out of him were suddenly allowing him to soar above all of this. For the first time since Will had been taken, Hannibal felt free-  _ transcendent _ . There was nothing that could stand between them now. Nobody he wouldn’t lie to, steal from, kill. Nowhere he wouldn’t go, nothing he wouldn’t do. 

He would find Will Graham, dead or alive, and he would not let the people who had betrayed him go unpunished.


End file.
